Avoiding knee jerk reactions, facing
reality, and understanding a small piece of the big picture. A hillbilly
carpenter’s observations.
So, it hit the mainstream media yesterday, communications
companies have cooperated with the NSA and reportedly tens of millions of
international phone calls involving Americans have been recorded, logged,
archived, data mined, whatever. I’m no computer expert. I was brung up on the
steam-powered computer, and these new fangled gizmos cause me conniption fits
frequently. But seems like I remember a contraption devised and built by the
U.S. called Echelon that was in England, if I recollect rightly, that could
monitor pert near ever single electronic communication on the planet. And that
was more than a decade ago. Weren’t there some law suits by European
corporations, claiming that Echelon was used ‘unethically’ to gain some sorta
business advantage and a bunch a contracts went to American companies instead a
European companies cuz they got the inside scoop from Echelon somehow, but the
whole thing got throwed outa court cuz a ‘national security’?
Anywho, since
‘intelligence’ agencies aint all dat dumb (regardless a what common sense may
indicate), it’s perfectly understandable that they would figure things out
purtty quick. Since it was illegal for U.S. agencies to spy on U.S. citizens,
and illegal for British agencies to spy on Limeys, and illegal for Canadian
agencies to spy on Hosers, well, it was only natural for the U.S. agencies to
spy on the Brits and the British agencies to spy on the Hosers and the Canadian
agencies to spy on the Yanks, and then all the agencies could get together and
share whatever they wanted to with each other. Ya see, any sorta privacy you
thought you had regarding easily monitored electronic communications was either
an illusion, based on your wishful thinking, or factual, based on the lucky
fact that they hadn’t latched on to you, yet.
Now, there’s a whole heap a difference tween monitorin and
recordin. Back in da days a duh steam powered computer, der weren’t anywhere
near da recordin capacity dat we got today wit digital nanotechnology. Which is
a major deal.
But, what is da big picture, or a little piece of it anyway?
Well, it’s big news, about the phone taps. It might be big news cuz the
intelligence agencies allowed it to be, but I doubt it. They let some stuff out
on purpose, and some stuff gets out, whether they want it to or not. Take the
‘put options’ involving American Airlines, United Airlines, and some companies
at the WTC. You can bet the farm that the intelligence agencies did not want
that in the media. But, it did make the media. At least hundreds of millions
and more likely billions of dollars were made on the stock market by folks who
knew the attacks of 9/11 were gona happen and placed ‘put options’ (made bets)
that the stock of those companies would fall. Nobody has been arrested, or even
questioned, and the amounts and identities are secret. Congress and the FBI can
find out all about it, but they haven’t shown any interest in doing so. $2.5
million is still unclaimed. So, when something like that, which is not supposed
to get out, does, you have plan A: put a lid on it ASAP and hope nobody notices
and it goes away quick. (Which has been almost, but not entirely, successful
regarding the insider trading prior to 9/11). Or, you could use plan B: put a spin
on it, try to use it to your advantage if it’s gona come out anyway. Well,
that’s easy in the case of the NSA phone taps. ‘I’m not a terrorist; I’m not a
criminal; why should I worry?’ Just put a lot of really uninformed opinions
like that on the boob tube and maybe it will catch on. If you mentioned the
fact that they might be looking for dissidents, or even gaining unscrupulous
business advantages by this tapping, opinions might change. But, the reality of
opinions don’t matter anyway, it’s how they are presented that matters. Check
out ‘Manufacturing Consent’ by Noam Chomsky. The polls could show 100 to 10
against the phone tapping, but the media might air the 10, and only 1 of the
100 (nice title huh?). Of course, when faced with an issue like the insider
trading related to 9/11, that’s a little tough to spin, so you’re back to plan
A.
Well, I hope I’ve helped clear this up a bit. I’ve gotta
slop the hogs and lock the chicken coop and get the horses in the barn for the
night. I’ll see ya tomorrow, if the good Lord is willin and the creek don’t
rise.